How to Plant Fruit Trees for MAXIMUM Growth and Harvest

Having a home orchard is awesome because obviously you get to have a bunch of fruit. However, making sure that you plant your fruit tree and plan your orchard accordingly are really key to actually getting that fruit. And because it can take up anywhere from four to seven years depending on the fruit variety, after planting the tree before you even get fruit, it's really important that you know how to plant it correctly so that you don't set yourself back. So I like to start with bare root plants. Bare root plants, bare root fruit tree plants are a lot cheaper than buying larger potted plants. And I don't like to grow my fruit trees from seed because one, you're going to be adding that many more years before you actually get fruit production. And depending upon the variety of fruit tree, when you plant them from seed, you don't actually get the same variety. So to make sure that I'm getting the exact variety that I want and at least cutting off a couple of years, I like to start with some younger immature bare root fruit trees. Now one of the things when you are getting your fruit tree that's really key to making sure that you actually can get fruit off of it is knowing by the variety type if it is a self-pollinating fruit tree, meaning it's self-fertile, I don't have to have another variety nearby in order to get fruit off of it. Or if it's a cross-pollinating type fruit tree, then you are going to need two different varieties, so not two of the exact same kind, in order to get fruit. So if you've got a smaller space, then you want to make sure that you are picking fruit varieties, one that actually grow in your climate, but two are self-fertile. So today I am actually adding in a nectarine. It's one of the very few fruit varieties that I don't have here in our home orchard. So I'm going to be showing you how to plant this. Now ideally with the bare roots, I like to plant them in, as long as the ground's not frozen and there's no snow, which there's not right now, I like to put mine in in winter or really early spring, but before any of these buds have begun to leaf out and before we hit the heat of summer. So you're going to want to evaluate your property. This is a semi-dwarf, so it's not going to get super huge, and you can see I've got lots all my other fruit trees in this area, and I like to keep the fruit trees kind of grouped together. One, it's easier for me when I'm taking care of them to have everything kind of in the same spot. Most of your fruit varieties need at least six plus hours of sun. So this is an area that gets full sun, which as you can see, while I have situated all my fruit trees here to make sure I'm getting full sun. So that's going to be important. You also want to make sure it's an area that has decently good soil. Fruit trees do need to have good soil, and you want to make sure that it's well draining. So you don't want it in hard compacted soil or in a low spot where you would get a ton of water or you would have a lot of runoff. So before you start digging your hole with your bare root trees, as we're going to remove this packaging, and we're going to have, I've got a five-gallon bucket here of water, and we're going to soak our roots before planting. So usually your bare root trees will come packed with sawdust like this because it's going to hold the moisture, and it's really important when you get it from the home before planting it, you're not planting it immediately. You want to check and make sure that this is still moist, which you can tell this sawdust is still, there's a lot of moisture in here because if the roots have totally dried out, then you're going to have problems. And there are our roots. So now it's the manual labor part. The good thing about starting with a fruit tree that isn't super big yet is I don't have to dig quite as big as a hole. So I just like to get the soil where it's going down there nice and loose so it's not compacted. And you can see there's kind of a mixture, a little bit of clay, a little bit of sand, but overall this is pretty dark and fertile soil. So now we're going to test and see our our hole is deep enough. So we want to make sure that there's plenty of room for these roots to go out, so both in circumference and in depth. And my depth is pretty good, but I need to make that just a little bit wider. Okay, so that's a lot better. You want to make sure we want to have these roots here where these guys, especially this long one, can spread out. You don't want them really wrapping around in a circle. We want the roots to spread out nice and far. So I kind of spread them back around here. I actually could go out just a little bit further right here for that one. Okay, that is just about right. So we're going to check. Now we've got some width here. We're also going to check our depth. So this is my root stock here, and then you can see here where it's been grafted on. And the reason they do that for a lot of root trees is they'll get a root stock that is something that isn't susceptible to z's. It's a really sturdy type of root stock, but then they'll graft on the type of fruit that you actually want to be growing, and so they'll put it onto the root stock. So it's important to know that because when you're planting it, you want to make sure that you're planting just a little bit below. So you can kind of see this, this is where this has been grafted on. So I'm going to have my soil depth to be right in this area. You can see it looks like that was the line because this came in sawdust, and I'm not actually buying, wasn't buying it at the nursery. We actually got a seed in the ground where the level was. It looks like that the soil line was kind of like right in here. So we're going to fill this with soil right up to this spot. Now you're going to notice that I'm not actually putting anything in the ground. I'm not adding fertilizer. I'm not adding anything to this soil, and that's really important because when you're dealing with trees, if I were to put a lot of compost and add a lot of different manure, composted manure, different stuff like that, and put a lot of fertilizer and amendments into this hole, the roots would not want to spread out to the other soil because they would realize that this area was the most fertile, and as they began to reach out and grow, they would feel and sense as they were feeding the soil difference. So in order to ensure that that root, the root system does spread out and grow, we don't actually add any amendments to the hole that we're planting it in. We will be adding some stuff in just a few steps, and I'll explain that, but we're not actually going to be putting it in here, and I always feel like it's better to have a larger, a wider hole where you're planting and putting your fruit tree, especially if it's in an area like this that's part of our yard and has the grass because this grass robs nitrogen and nutrients from the plant, and I don't want to have a bunch of grass, especially right around where the root system is, so don't be afraid to go wider with your hole and take out especially anything that would be competing around it. ...worms and some really good dirt on these soil clumps from the grass, and obviously I don't want the grass and their roots in there, but I'm kind of trying to shake loose some of this dirt. Back in. Okay, so now we want to make sure that we have this watered really well. We've been soaking those roots, and then now we're going to pour some of this over. This is also going to show me where I have any air pockets, and we need to add more soil, and we've had days and days of rain, so my soil is not completely saturated, but it definitely is not dry. Now we didn't add anything to the hole other than the regular dirt, but this is where we're going to take our compost. So this has been composting down. It does have manure in it, but it's been aged for over six months, which is key. So we're going to take some of this, and we're going to add this to the top layer. So we're going to check, and we can kind of see where the water has all finished draining here, which is good, and you can also see where it's sunken down a little bit, and that's what I said. There was some air pockets down in there, and so when you water it like that, it'll let you show, you know, kind of these are some areas. We're going to be putting more soil, the composted soil, on top of here anyways, but it just kind of lets you know where those are at if you do need to add any more soil, which we do because you can see this is much too shallow to leave this. We need more dirt in here, but we need to leave room for some of this really rich, nice compost. So it's fine to be putting this on top because as it rains, it's just going to filter the nutrients down in, but it's not going to confuse the roots and keep them in the hole because it's only being fed from the top, and you can see how dark this is. So the darker the soil is a good indicator, without doing soil tests, that it has more nutrients and health in it, and while I do want this around so that it's right at the level it was at the nursery, you don't want to pile a bunch of soil up around your trunk, so you don't ever want to have it like encased. You want to make sure you don't want to girdle it. Now I'm planting this tree in winter, and we get a ton of rain and moisture here in the Pacific Northwest, so I'm not really worried about this not getting enough moisture right now, but we still want to provide some mulch, so let's not let this sawdust that it was packed in go to waste. I'm just going to simply put this right on top, and this will continue to break down over time, but because I've got this sawdust right on top, it's not actually...oops, I forgot my wire tiniest to go in my pocket. I'm not mixing this into the soil, so it's not going to affect the nitrogen levels at all by just sitting on the top, and eventually it will just break down, but in the meantime, having this layer of sawdust on the top does help for moisture, but it also helps for many of the weeds trying to encroach or take the seeds growing on this top layer because I want to keep this weed free. Now when we're first planting this tree like this, we're pretty much done. If you're not getting about an inch of rain a week, then you are going to want to water this for the entire first year, so all the way through the summer and even into the fall, even though I'm planting this at the time this recording is in February. I will water this all the way through until next fall, so that's a mistake a lot of people make when they're planting a new fruit tree if they think that they just need to water it at the time of planting or maybe the month or a few weeks afterwards, but no, you want to make sure if you're not getting an inch of rain a week that you are providing it. I usually give it about two gallons of water for a tree this size if we haven't had any rain in a week or checking your soil levels. Now this is super important for the longevity, health of your tree, and getting lots of fruit and establishing a really good root system because your fruit trees can produce fruit for decades. I mean, my parents have fruit trees that are over 50 years old and are still producing fruit, but the key is making sure you get everything done right in the beginning. So one of the things is as soon as your fruit tree begins to blossom that first spring, go ahead and let it blossom. That's fine. Enjoy the blossoms. One of my favorite things about fruit trees is the beautiful flowers that we get in the spring. However, when your tree is it's the first year that you have planted it, you need to remove those blossoms after they have bloomed. Do not let them form fruit, and I know that is super hard that first year. You're like, oh, but I want to, but it's really key because it's going to put too much stress on the roots. The tree is going to put all of its energy into growing and producing that fruit when it needs to be putting it into root growth and establishing a really good root system. So all of the blossoms after they have bloomed need to be removed that first year. Now right at planting time, one thing that can happen, this is really common, it can happen in the nurseries, it can happen when you're shipping it or when you're bringing it home, and it can also happen when you are planting, and that is you will get some broken branches, especially some of these really younger or smaller ones down here. So this branch obviously it's cracked over on this side, so it's hanging on by just a thread. So this is something that we want to make sure that we have a clean cut and that we get pruned off. It's not going to repair itself and it's just going to leave the tree open for disease and or insects. So we're going to come up when it's like this and it's a clean break right at the trunk. You're just going to come up right where it is, take your pruning shears, and you're actually just going to go right next to the trunk. You don't want to get into the girdle right here you've got or where the branch right is this and it's hard to see on these smaller ones, but you can see right here where it sticks out like it's swollen just a little bit from the trunk and then you have the branch. You want to cut right up to that but not in it and just flush right straight up and down. So we've got that removed. That was the only one that actually got damaged as I'm looking through here. So that's the only one that actually needs to be pruned off. All the rest of these guys look pretty good. Now one of the other things, especially with young fruit trees, that many people encounter is problems from deer. Deer will come in and they will, especially these younger branches here in a younger fruit tree, they will come in and they will totally break off branches or eat branches and they kind of can annihilate them and sometimes they can be so destructive it actually kills the tree. So as you can see from quite a few of my other young fruit trees, these fruit trees were planted last year, you can use like tool netting. This is not tool netting, this is just some plastic netting, kind of like kind of fencing but it's a little flimsy for fencing, and I didn't even have stake on this one, I just tied it together with jute twine. But that keeps the deer from coming in, this is a cherry tree, from coming in and nibbling on all the little edges. So as this tree is beginning to, it's got some some buds and stuff but it's not near bud break so it won't be leafing or flowering out for a few more months, I'll come in cut it off and then enlarge that so that you're always making sure that your netting is enlarging with the tree. But I've on all of my young trees, once the trees are larger then the deer seem to leave them alone or they've got more branches so if the deer do happen to break one off it's not quite as drastic. So I don't have these larger ones netted and they've been doing just fine but usually the first two to three years of planting a bare root tree I will keep it netted or a barrier method to keep the deer away. Now I have tried all different kinds of methods in the past to keep the deer away. We've tried scent, we've tried spinning shiny things, you name it we've tried it. Honestly the barrier method works the absolute best for just keeping them away. Now if you're wondering how many fruit trees do you need to plant for a family or how much you're going to get or if you're like well I'm not sure what are self-pollinating varieties, what are ones that I need, cross pollinating varieties, I have got a chart and a blog post that has all of that listed for you so you can click the link below here in the video or we'll try to put it up in the cards so that you can go and get further information on that so that you can make sure now that you know how to plant your fruit tree properly that you can one learn how to prune it, we've got a how to prune trees video for you as well, but also that you are picking the right varieties for you and your growing climate so that you can have fruit for decades to come.